Stacking DVDs, CDs and books.. it was just easier to put it on the floor than to find a clear surface, right?
Not any more.
CDs & DVDs
1. Rip & Store them Digitally
Then you can burn and rip all of those songs and movies onto your computer, and store it on an elegant external hard drive such as this one:
Western Digital Passport Elite - 500GB Portable Hard Drive
Western Digital just released a 1TB external hard drive, selling for $400 USD.
1TB = 1000 GB
And 1000 GB = 1,000,000 MB
1,000,000 MB = A lot of space.
You can buy one of those, or a 500GB or lower hard drive to store your files, so you can eliminate (or sell?) your CDs and DVDs altogether.
2. Keep the DVDs & CDs and put them in binders
If you aren’t sentimental, throw out the jewel cases and all the packaging that comes on a DVD and CD.
It probably cuts down the clutter by about 80%, because you can fit 128 CDs into a large elegant binder that takes up MUCH less space and room.
You can convert 3-ring binders into CD holders as well. You just need the 3-ring binder, and the CD sleeves to slot into them.
Why a big binder? A big binder takes up less space than a whole stack of CDs and DVDs, and you can flip through every movie or CD without having to deal with running your finger over every spine.
Check out this cool option to put it into a binder and call it a day:
It looks like a book!
3. Keep the packaging & stack them nicely
Alternatively, stack them nicely on the bookshelf in some personal Dewey Decimal system.
Either by colour, by band, by year, whatever.
You can also mix them up with your books.
Books
1. Digitize your books
Consider getting an e-reader and moving all of your heavy, dust-covered books into a neat little device.
The Kindle and Sony E-Readers are expensive right now, but I’ve heard that Asus is coming out with a dual screen, coloured e-ink, wi-fi compatible e-reader for $165!
Conceptual Asus E-Book Reader for $165
E-Readers can also hold thousands of books, because each book is only 1MB or so. If you have 10 GB of space, that’s a whole library or 10,000 books.
2. Pare down on your collection
Other than that, the options for organizing books is pretty limited because they’re big, heavy and they take up space.
I’d suggest getting rid of books you haven’t read nor want to keep on your shelf because while this is cool, you may not want to end up with this:
Try donating your books to those who might need and read them. Hospitals, Libraries and Offices are good places to start.
The more space you have on your shelf, the nicer it looks, and you are able to add more books as you go along.
You can even put little decorations to make it sexier, or add little sliding panels to hide the CDs and DVDs as shown below:
There are plenty of options and ways to organize your collection of books, DVDs and CDs out there.
All you have to do, is get them off the floor first, and make a decision.
E
on Oct 7th, 2009
@ 8:29 am:
In my opinion, those passport HD drives are sexier than any i-something out there. Instant turn-on.
Lol I certainly would rather have that than the 250GB external drive with plug that I currently carry with me at all times (except in social instances…I’m not a geek afterall 
)
Darko
on Oct 7th, 2009
@ 12:20 pm:
I have it easy – I’m a librarian!
Access kills storage. So I now have no music CDs, no movies on DVDs and a tiny library of probably 30 books. I mostly find music online and stream it, and a retro styled radio keeps me entertained with local radio stations. Movies are best enjoyed with friends so that’s what we do – got to cinema!
lynda
on Oct 7th, 2009
@ 9:30 pm:
Great suggestions! I am in the process of ripping all my movies onto a terabyte hard drive. I’ve already done all my music cd’s – couldn’t bring myself to toss them yet but at least now I can box them up and put them away! I own less paper books now than at any other point in my life – including childhood lol – new additions always try to be digital.
Information is an incredible space-waster – great to point that out!
lynda´s last blog ..Simple Progress
Concojones
on Oct 9th, 2009
@ 4:14 pm:
When ripping CDs, you’ll want to use quality ripping software (EAC or something that uses AccurateRip) and use a lossless storage format (like FLAC) rather than MP3, considering how cheap storage is these days. (Mass-converting to MP3, to use on your ipod, is pretty easy).
ashok
on Oct 10th, 2009
@ 5:25 pm:
At one point, I had all my books organized by historical period and by genre/topic. I was very proud of that moment – the bookshelf went from Plato to Nietzsche with stops, for example, at Aristotle, Thucydides, Xenophon, Herodotus, Greek drama, Plutarch – and that was just the Greek section.
I don’t have the shelf space I need right now to pull this off. I’ll get it soon though. It’s really worth doing because when organized well, you think in terms of “hey, what do I want to learn today,” and go right for it.
ashok´s last blog ..On Robert Bly’s “Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter”